


Liar, Liar

by DesertSnowQueen



Series: For Bitter or Worse [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drama, Gen, Group chat, IDENTITY SHENANIGANS, Identity Reveal, Lila is a liar, Salt, Saltinette, Season 3 Spoilers, salt fic, she lies about the wrong thing, technically it's completed but i might write more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertSnowQueen/pseuds/DesertSnowQueen
Summary: We all know Lila lies. But what happens when Lila picks the wrong thing to lie about?Featuring: Saltinette!





	1. I Just Can't Lie to You

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like 20 minutes after seeing [this post](https://mindfulmagics.tumblr.com/post/180688827378/nobodyfamousposts-m-alcn-mindfulmagics) on Tumblr. I'm planning a part 2 so I decided to post it here as well to make it easier for people to find.
> 
> Originally posted [here](https://mindfulmagics.tumblr.com/post/180688790443/liar-liar).

Marinette was determined to keep her calm around Lila. Yes, Lila had threatened her, but the threat Hawkmoth would pose if he akumatized Ladybug was worse. She knew Lila’s lies would be exposed eventually. All she had to do was wait it out and hope it would happen sooner, rather than later.

That didn’t mean it was immensely entertaining to watch Lila choose the wrong thing to lie to their class about. One instance in particular regarding a certain superheroine.

“You guys, I can’t bear to lie to you anymore,” Lila said, her voice sickly sweet. She wrung her hands nervously, and for a second, Marinette thought she might have finally decided to turn a new leaf. “I’m actually Rena Rouge…Ladybug chose me to help her because we’re such great friends.”

Marinette snickered, but quickly disguised it as a cough. This was going to be very interesting...

“What?” Nino and Alya shrieked in unison. “You’re lying! There’s no way you’re Rena Rouge!”

“How can you say that?” Lila asked, her eyes wide at the accusation. Her lip started wobbling and she began to fidget uncomfortably. “I’ve told you before that Ladybug and I are best friends! Why wouldn’t she choose her best friend to help her save Paris?”

“But why would you reveal yourself to us? A hero’s secret identity is the most important thing to them,” Alya said. “If the wrong person found out, their families could be in serious danger! What if one of us got akumatized and told Hawkmoth who you were?”

“Well, you guys have been able to protect Chloe, and all of Paris knows her identity…I thought I could trust all of you to protect my identity as well,” Lila said, tears welling in her eyes. “I trust you all so much, and we’re all so close that I just couldn’t lie to you anymore!”

“But weren’t you traveling while Rena Rouge was saving Paris?” Nino asked carefully, thinking he had found the perfect loophole to expose Lila. There was no way he could have someone else taking the credit for his girlfriend’s heroics.

“One of the powers granted by the Fox miraculous is teleportation, Nino,” Lila stated matter-of-factly. “It’s very hard to use, so I don’t use it during battles while I’m in Paris. It would take too much energy and I wouldn’t be able to help at all!”

“Well, can you transform and show us?” Marinette asked innocently. “I’m a really huge fan of Rena Rouge! To think I’ve been sitting so close to her this whole time…”

Marinette could sense Alya fuming beside her and had to really focus on keeping her expression as innocent as possible.

“I’m sorry, Marinette, but I’m really not supposed to transform when there isn’t an akuma,” Lila said apologetically. “It wastes a lot of energy, and if I waste my energy transforming when there isn’t a threat, I could be late to a fight and someone could get hurt.”

The whole class began nodding and saying how, “That makes a lot of sense,” and, “We almost never see Ladybug and Chat Noir when there isn’t an akuma to fight.” Lila smiled brightly.

“Where’s your Miraculous?” Chloe asked, raising one eyebrow sharply.

“It’s right here,” Lila said, pulling out her fox tail necklace that looked just like the Fox miraculous, not that most of their classmates had ever seen it up close before. 

Marinette had to admit that Lila had thought through this lie pretty well. The only failure was that Rena Rouge was already in their classroom, and that three of her classmates knew who the hero really was.

“Ladybug doesn’t let us keep our Miraculous,” Chloe said. “It’s a rule. After the battle is won, we have to give the Miraculous back for safe keeping, and then she comes to find us when we’re needed again. That’s why some fights are just her and Chat Noir.”

“I think she just doesn’t let you keep your Miraculous, Chloe, since you told all of Paris your identity,” Lila said, her tone a strange mix of gentle and icy.

“Then why don’t you help her all the time?” Chloe retorted, her blue eyes frigid.

“She calls me when she needs help. We text all the time, already, so it’s easy for her to get in touch with me,” Lila said, waving off the question.

“You text Ladybug? Can you show us the messages?” Alya asked, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly.

“I would, but that would reveal her identity to you,” Lila said. “Just because I can tell you my identity doesn’t mean I can tell you hers.”

Again, the class nodded as if that was the most logical answer in the world. Lila smiled brightly at them.

“So, can I trust you guys to help keep my identity safe? Or to provide cover if I ever have to leave to fight an akuma?” Lila asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.

“You can count on us,” Kim declared, and the rest of the class chimed in with their agreements.

All except for four students who knew the truth about Lila, and one who just didn’t like her.

~*~*~*~

Alya and Nino cornered Marinette at lunch that day. Their expressions were a mix of frustration, anger, and remorse.

“Marinette, we’re sorry,” Alya said, sitting down across from her best friend.

“What are you sorry for?” Marinette asked, pretending to be genuinely confused.

“You were right about Lila being a liar. We should have listened to you when you told us,” Alya said. Nino nodded. Marinette was about to say all was forgiven, but the way her friends refused to listen to her without solid proof still stung, and the reminder made her bitter about it all over again.

“But how do you know she’s lying about this, Alya? Do you have any proof?” Marinette asked, putting on the same innocent facade from that morning. “I’ve been told that a good reporter should always verify their source…what makes you think she’s lying? She has a Miraculous and everything!”

“But, wasn’t she Volpina?” Nino asked, trying to come up with any kind of plausible evidence that does not involve revealing their identities.

“And Chloe was Antibug and then Queen Wasp. She still helped on Heroes' Day as Queen Bee,” Marinette countered.

“But she looks nothing like Rena Rouge!” Alya argued.

“Gosh, Alya, don’t you think that it would be too obvious if she looked exactly the same as a civilian and as a hero?” Marinette said. She had to force herself to say that as straight as she possibly could so that they wouldn’t pick up on her sarcasm and accidentally figure her out. “There’s magic involved! And maybe she just didn’t want people to associate her with the akuma. Chloe looked different as an akuma, remember?”

“But then why did she get akumatized into Rena Rage on Heroes’ Day, when Queen Bee was akumatized back into Queen Wasp?” Alya asked. Marinette gasped.

“She did? I had no idea,” Marinette said. She knew she was being mean, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. “Were you at the battle, Alya?”

“I, um, I saw it on the news! You know how Prime Queen was live-steaming everything during the fight! I saw it there!” Alya said quickly, her face a few shades paler at having almost revealed herself. She didn’t think it was the end of the world for Marinette to know, but she had no way of proving that she was Rena Rouge, and what if that put Marinette in danger?

“Well, maybe Lila had just moved on from her days as Volpina by then and so Hawkmoth couldn’t use that against her. After all, I think I heard that she only got akumatized into Volpina because she was mad at Ladybug, so maybe once they worked things out, they got even closer!” Marinette said.

“But it’s a secret identity! If the magic was so important to protecting her, why did she tell us?” Nino countered.

“I don’t know, but aren’t you surprised?” Marinette asked. “I never would have seen it coming! Maybe she really doesn’t lie as much as I thought she did."

Alya looked ready to tear her hair out. Nino was just as frustrated but had nothing he could say that would change Marinette’s mind.

“I can’t prove it yet, but I know that she’s lying, Marinette. Please, believe me?” Alya begged. Marinette almost threw in the towel right then and said she did. But this was Alya’s secret identity on the line that Marinette wasn’t supposed to know about. When Marinette couldn’t use her secret identity to prove that she knew Lila was lying before, her friends hadn’t been willing to believe her.

“I don’t know, Alya. You’re a good reporter! If anyone could find out if Lila really is Rena Rouge or not, I’m sure you could! After all, you managed to prove that Chloe wasn’t Ladybug,” Marinette said. She immediately felt bad for that last comment, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from saying it.

“That was a low blow, Marinette,” Alya said, looking heartbroken. “You’re my best friend, I thought you would trust me.”

“I’ve thought that about my friends too,” Marinette said quietly. She poked at her lunch a few times and then abruptly stood up. “I’ll see you in class.”

Her best friends watched her leave, utterly perplexed at how uncharacteristic that comment was for Marinette. She never made snide remarks about any of her classmate’s akumatized selves.

“That must be revenge for when she tried to convince us Lila was lying about the ringing in her ear,” Nino said quietly. “We refused to believe her then, so now she’s acting the same way we did…”

“But Marinette never lies,” Alya said. “Why would she lie to us about not believing us?”

“To be fair, she never said she didn’t believe us. She mostly just parroted back your comment about not having any proof,” Nino reminded her.

“We have to fix this,” Alya said, standing up. “Let’s go see if she’s in class. Maybe together we can come up with a plan to expose Lila once and for all.”

“I like the sound of that,” Nino agreed.


	2. Saltinette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired. This also became much longer than I originally intended it to be.

Marinette’s heart felt heavy as she walked into the classroom. She couldn’t believe she had said that to Alya. She knew Lila was lying, and she knew that Alya knew that too. So why had she insisted on making Alya feel the way she had when they wouldn’t believe her?

_Because it hurt you,_ a little voice that sounded like Tikki said. _Not enough for you to be akumatized, but it still hurt you. You aren’t over it yet, and they just reminded you of that._

She sighed and trudged to her desk, practically slamming her forehead against it in her frustration. Why did all of this have to be so complicated?

“Hey, Marinette, is everything okay?” Adrien’s voice called out to her. She sat up immediately, but had to brace herself with the table when everything got really dark for a second. She blinked that away and focused on the boy that was sitting in front of her. She was tempted to just say everything was fine, but she also didn’t want to lie...

“No,” she finally admitted. “Alya and Nino told me during lunch that they realized Lila was lying about everything, and instead of telling them that I believed them and that I forgave them for not believing me, I practically lied to them. I was so rude to them...”

“Oh, come on, Marinette. It couldn’t have been that bad!” Adrien said, trying to cheer her up. “You’re the nicest person I know!”

“I brought up Lady Wifi…” Marinette admitted, hiding her face in embarrassment.

“Oh,” Adrien said lamely. He reached over and gently pulled her hands away from her face. “Do you want to talk about it? Everyone else is still at lunch, so we have time.”

“I think I’d like that,” Marinette said, smiling at him weakly.

She told him everything that had happened, starting with the last time she had tried to get Alya to believe Lila was lying. She admitted to having eavesdropped on his conversation with Lila in the part across from her house, and how Nino had scolded her for it while ignoring everything else she was saying. She told him that Alya had insisted on “verifying her source” and demanding proof when she clearly hadn’t done that for Lila, and how she had turned that on Alya when she was convinced that Lila wasn’t Rena Rouge. She even told him how she had played along with Lila’s lie to get revenge on them. She was even about to tell him how Alya had dismissed her by saying she was just jealous when his sly smile made her pause.

“What?”

“I didn’t know you had a salty side, Marinette.”

“Adrien!”

“Relax, I’m only joking. You can’t be nice all of the time, no one can,” he promised her. “Besides, you clearly feel bad about it. If you weren’t such a nice person, then you wouldn’t.”

“Thanks, Adrien,” Marinette said, proud that she was able to take his praise out without stuttering.

“Of course,” he said, the sly smile still on his face. “You may continue your story, Saltinette.”

“Adrien!”

He started laughing at her expression, a mixture of frustration, exasperation, and something else that he could only label as fondness for his teasing. It reminded him so much of his Lady when he would make a particularly bad joke. She just stared at him with the same expression until she broke down laughing too. Neither of them noticed when Alya and Nino walked in, wearing matching expressions of pure shock to see how hard their two best friends were laughing together.

“Marinette?” Alya asked. Immediately, Marinette and Adrien stopped laughing and looked at them with very serious expressions. “Can we talk about what just happened?”

“Oh, about you accusing Lila of lying to the class?” Marinette asked.

“Yes. Look, we overheard you talking to Adrien about it so we know you both know we’re right—“

“Oh, I’m sorry, but were you two eavesdropping?” Adrien interrupted her, his tone pitched to sound scandalized. “Not cool.”

“Dude,” Nino said bluntly, his eyes full of betrayal.

“Can you please stop? You were right. We’re sorry,” Alya begged. Adrien looked to Marinette, indicating it was her choice. He would follow her lead on this.

“Are you sure, Alya? I wouldn’t want to be accused of just being jealous again,” Marinette said sharply.

“Wait, what?” Adrien asked, turning to Alya. “Did you accuse Marinette of lying because she was jealous of Lila? Why would Marinette be jealous of Lila?”

“Well, well, she…” Alya trailed off, searching for an answer she didn’t have to replace the one she couldn’t give. If she wanted any chance of getting Marinette to properly forgive her, Alya knew she couldn’t betray Marinette by bringing up her crush now.

“Alya, just stop,” Marinette said, holding up one hand. “You’re my best friend, so of course I forgive you. Just please, don’t do it again? I need to know you’ll have my back no matter what.”

“I promise,” Alya swore, crossing her heart for emphasis.

“I promise, too,” Nino said, following his girlfriend’s lead. “It was totally not cool of us to not listen to you…we’ve known you longer. We should have known better.”

“It’s okay this time,” Marinette said. The unspoken _next time it won’t be_ hung in the air as Nino and Alya sat in their respective seats.

“So, how are we going to expose Lila?” Nino asked. Adrien winced.

“I’m not sure we should,” Adrien said. “When has being mean to someone ever made them nicer?”

“We’re not being mean to her by proving that she’s lying, Adrien. We’re just checking our facts. It’s like calling out fake news,” Alya countered. “You have to, otherwise people fall for things that are blatantly untrue.”

“It still doesn’t feel right…” Adrien said. Marinette took a deep breath and told them something only Tikki knew.

“She threatened me, Adrien,” Marinette said, causing all of them to turn and face her with wide eyes. “Lila threatened to come between me and all of my friends and destroy my friendships so that I would always be alone…”

Adrien’s green eyes hardened. He glanced at Alya and Nino to see they were fuming at Marinette’s confession.

“I almost let her do just that today,” Marinette continued, completely oblivious to the anger rolling off of her friends. “I should have just said I believed you from the beginning. When she said that…she had cornered me in the bathroom after I threw the napkin at her at lunch. I almost got akumatized after she left. I managed to calm down before the akuma touched me, but it was a very close call.”

“We’re exposing her,” Adrien declared, causing Marinette to look at him in surprise. “We’ll focus on the things we can prove and go from there. Maybe we can even do it in a way that makes it clear that she was lying about everything.”

“But where do we start?” Nino asked. “Should we start with her lying about being Rena Rouge?”

“No, we can’t prove that,” Marinette said. “Unless we got the two of them in the same room in front of the whole class, but even then, Rena Rouge’s power is about illusions, so she could just say it was a trick she came up with to protect her identity. The only way to expose that lie would be for the real Rena Rouge to expose her identity, and we can’t ask her to do that all because one girl lied.”

“That’s true. What about her being friends with Ladybug? Surely we could expose that? Before Lila got akumatized, Ladybug was really upset with her,” Adrien said.

“Dude, we don’t know if she was lying about that or not. Friends fight all the time. We were all just fighting with each other, and if Marinette was arguing with a friend, you can be certain that Ladybug would argue with a friend,” Nino argued.

“Wait, what about the Jagged Stone thing? Marinette, you said Jagged didn’t have a kitten,” Alya pointed out. “You can get in touch with him, right?”

“I don’t know, Alya…can I?” Marinette asked before she could stop herself. Adrien snickered at her answer while Alya looked distraught.

“Easy, Saltinette,” he teased.

“Adrien!” Marinette exclaimed, turning on him. He was too proud of himself and that sly smile was enough to short out her brain and make her forget what she was going to say to him.

“Saltinette?” Alya and Nino asked in unison. Marinette just waved them off.

“He can explain it to you later,” Marinette grumbled. “Anyway, yes, Alya. I can get in touch with him and see if she was lying about that. And you can find Ladybug and ask if she’s friends with Lila. You could also ask if she ever gave Lila a Miraculous, if you really wanted to expose Lila as not being Rena Rouge.”

“Are we talking about exposing that imposter hero?” Chloe's shrill voice came from the door. “Because I’m in.”

“Really?” all four of them asked in unison.

“Why?” Alya asked.

“Because it’s one thing to lie about knowing celebrities and superheroes and saving kittens from airplanes,” Chloe said seriously, “but it’s another to lie about being a hero. I know I bring up being a hero a lot, but I don’t really know why Ladybug gave me back the Bee miraculous after the trouble I caused, and I know Ladybug wouldn’t have chosen Lila to be Rena Rouge. The real Rena Rouge actually cares about her teammates, and she doesn’t teleport. The idea of Lila being Rena is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!”

Adrien, Alya, Marinette, and Nino all looked at her in shock, but a moment later Chloe had squeezed herself onto the bench next to Adrien to join the team.

“So, since my daddy is the mayor, he can reach out to Prince Ali in Achu and find out if Lila was ever there helping stop climate change or whatever it was she was doing. He was the one who hosted Prince Ali while he was here in Paris, after all,” Chloe said. Adrien grinned.

“I think that sounds like a plan to me,” Adrien declared. “We’ll just have to divide and conquer. Marinette, Alya, and Chloe can work on exposing the lies themselves, and Nino and I will help wherever you need us to. We can also listen for any other lies Lila might be telling that would be easy enough to expose as well, or maybe go and ask her mother about the trip Lila kept telling us about so she knows Lila was lying too.”

“If we’re really doing this, we need two things: codenames and a team name! We’re practically the Avengers or the MiracuSqaud of Collège Françoise Dupont!” Alya declared.

“The what?” Marinette and Adrien asked in unison.

“The MiracuSquad! I figured our city's superhero team needed a name and Team Miraculous seemed a little too official,” Alya explained.

“What about Team Bee?” Chloe suggested, which was quickly met with a hard no from everyone. She crossed her arms and pouted.

“What about the Justice League? Since we’re getting justice for the lies Lila has told?” Nino suggested.

“Already a thing, babe,” Alya shot down.

“What about the MythBusters?” Adrien asked. “Since everything Lila says is a myth?"

“Again, dude, already a thing.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s right. I was watching reruns of that this weekend.”

“What about Miraclasse? Kind of a play on Alya’s MiracuSquad, but since we’re just trying to keep the peace in our classroom instead of going out and fighting super villains and purifying akumas on a regular basis, we swap out squad for the French word for class,” Marinette suggested. “Plus, it’s a nod to the unexpected but real hero on our team.”

“Dude, yes,” Nino said enthusiastically.

“It’s perfect,” Alya and Adrien agreed.

“I guess it’s okay,” Chloe said. “But I’m keeping Queen Bee as my code name.”

“Are we just going to base our names off of the actual heroes?” Adrien asked. Nino immediately raised his hand, almost slapping Adrien in the process.

“Can I be Chat Noir?” Nino asked.

“I think you’d make a better Carapace,” Alya said. Nino made a face at her.

“I think Marinette should be our Ladybug,” Adrien declared. “She's already our everyday Ladybug, after all.”

“Yes!” Alya agreed. “Which I guess makes me Rena Rouge and leaves Adrien as Chat Noir?”

“Wait I thought Nino was going to be Chat Noir?” Adrien asked.

“No, no, Alya is right. You should totally be Chat Noir,” Nino said. “You had Marinette’s back when none of the rest of us did, just like the real Chat Noir would do for Ladybug.”

“Well, okay,” Adrien agreed, smiling. 

Marinette was starting to feel a little nervous about all of this, since it was a little too close to reality, but at least Adrien wasn’t actually Chat Noir and none of them knew she was actually Ladybug. This would work. There was just one thing left to do…

“So…I guess we need a group chat?” Marinette asked, pulling out her phone.

“Already on it!” Alya said, typing furiously. 

Seconds later, all of their phones dinged with a message from Alya to the group _Miraclasse_.

**From: Rena R.**

**Let’s do this.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, um, technically this was the end of what I had planned. I'm willing to write more because I think the Miraclasse idea is a cute one and would make for a really funny reveal, but I don't have any more ideas. If you have one, either leave a comment or send me a message on [Tumblr](https://mindfulmagics.tumblr.com/) and I'll see what I can do.


	3. Sodrien Chloride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I know I told some of you it might be a few weeks before the next chapter...but I woke up this morning and inspiration struck so I wrote this. I hope y'all enjoy!

**WEDNESDAY**

**_To: Miraclasse_ **

**Ladybug: Does everyone know what they’re doing?**

**Queen B: You don’t have to micromanage us, Dupain-Cheng. I think we can figure out how to expose a liar.**

**Ladybug: I’m just making sure**

**Rena R.: Nino and I are going to find Ladybug tonight and ask her for a video interview. We’ll say a friend of ours is claiming to be Ladybug’s best friend and we wanted to do a piece on being friends with superheroes.**

**Carapace: Then we’ll know for sure if Lila was telling the truth about that or not**

**Ladybug: Okay cool**

**Ladybug: I texted Penny to set up a meeting with Jagged tomorrow. I’ll explain what happened and ask if he would be willing to video call during lunch on Friday to set things straight**

**Rena R.: I bet Adrien could go with you!**

**Chat Noir: I’d love that! We can team up, just like the real Ladybug and Chat Noir!**

**Queen B: Why do we have to wait until Friday? Today is Wednesday!**

**Ladybug: We need time to make sure we can gather enough evidence to expose her, Chloe. Plus, I’m designing hero-themed scarves for us to wear when we confront her and I need time to make them.**

**Rena R.: CUTE**

**Rena R.: YES**

**Rena R.: Could you maybe make an extra Ladybug one for me…?**

**Ladybug: Sure, Alya**

**Chat Noir: …**

**Chat Noir: Can I have a Ladybug one too…?**

**Ladybug: Oh, um, yeah, sure. I’ll just get extra yarn.**

**Chat Noir: You’re pawsome!**

**Carapace: Really living up to that code name, I see**

**Chat Noir: I couldn’t paws up the oppurrtunity, Nino!**

**Queen B: Ugh, you sound EXACTLY like him, Adrikins!**

**Chat Noir: I have nine lives, Queenie! Let me live them!**

**Carapace: Especially since his father won’t**

**Chat Noir: Meow-ch! We could call you Catty-pace, Nino!**

**Rena R.: Alright, drama cat, we get it. You can give it a rest.**

**Chat Noir: I have a sinking feline you don’t appawciate my puns**

**Ladybug: Focus, Kitty. You can pun all you want after we expose Lila.**

**Chat Noir: Is that a purromise, My Lady?**

**Ladybug: Sure, Chaton.**

**Rena R.: Wow you guys are really getting into character! I knew Adrien would be a good fit for Chat Noir in this!**

**Chat Noir: I guess you were right, haha…and I was right about Marinette being a good Ladybug!**

**Ladybug: Can we focus, please? We have to “deevilize” our classmates and get them out of Lila’s control!**

**Queen B: I’ll talk daddy into letting me call Prince Ali**

**Carapace: I was thinking about that…are we sure he’ll answer? Because I might have a better idea just in case…**

**Rena R.: What’s your idea?**

**Carapace: We call her mom during class to ask her about the work she was doing in Achu. Surely Lila doesn’t expect us to believe she was there alone.**

**Rena R.: That would work, and might be more accessible than Prince Ali. Can someone work on getting her phone number so we can have that as backup?**

**Chat Noir: Chloe might be our best bet again, since that’s a government phone number.**

**Rena R.: Unless Marinette is willing to get it…**

**Ladybug: Alya…**

**Rena R.: All you would have to do is take Lila’s phone for five minutes to find her mom’s number! Or you could sneak into Principal Damocles’s office and get it off of the school computer**

**Chat Noir: You realize you’re asking Marinette to commit a crime…right?**

**Carapace: Nah, she won’t get caught. She’s done it before.**

**Chat Noir: Wait, what?**

**Ladybug: …**

**Ladybug: I’ll do it but I need her to be distracted long enough that I can find her phone, get it away from her, and get it back without her noticing. So, like 10 minutes?**

**Chat Noir: Marinette, what if you get caught?**

**Ladybug: Adrien, I won’t if I can rely on you guys to distract her! Just like when the real heroes distract the akuma long enough for Ladybug to use her Lucky Charm! Please, kitty?**

**Chat Noir: …**

**Chat Noir: Okay. We’ll figure out how to distract her and you can get the phone.**

**Queen B: If I had my Miraculous I could paralyze her…**

**Ladybug: Chloe, no. But I think you would be able to make her immobile…Chloe, you need to keep her in one place. Whatever it takes, make sure she does not leave the spot she’s in when I take the phone away. The more she moves, the harder it would be to get her phone back to her.**

**Queen B: Fine**

**Rena R.: Oh! Maybe I could tell her I wanted to showcase her on the Ladyblog! I could say I want to film an interview where she talks about her friendship with Ladybug!**

**Chat Noir: That may not work, Alya…I don’t know if she really likes Ladybug all that much. I think she just thinks people will like her better if they were best friends**

**Rena R.: Well…maybe if we tell her we want to do an interview asking what it’s like to be saved by Ladybug?**

**Ladybug: That could work. We’ll need Nino to protect you though, just in case Lila lashes out at you for calling her bluff the way she lashed out at me. Adrien, could you be backup on this? If she tries to get away, could you take over distracting her until I’ve finished with her phone?**

**Chat Noir: Of course. But Marinette, what if it’s passcode locked?**

**Ladybug: Then I’ll deal with it, or we’ll change tactics and go through Principal Damocles’s office instead.**

**Chat Noir: This all sounds purrty risky, Marinette**

**Ladybug: I trust you guys, but I need you to trust me. Just like if we were the real heroes. It’s never failed them before.**

**Rena R.: We’ve got your back, Marinette.**

**Carapace: Yeah, dude! You can count on us!**

**Chat Noir: Of course I trust you.**

**Queen B: If this fails, I wasn’t involved…but if there’s one thing I know, once Marinette Dupain-Cheng sets her mind to something, she doesn’t fail.**

**Ladybug: Then we have a plan. Alya, Nino, you should get going. Ladybug’s patrol should start soon.**

**Rena R.: Right! Talk to you guys later!**

~*~*~*~

**Rena R.: We got the interview! Oh, I can’t wait to show this to the class! Ladybug flat out said she never considered giving Lila a Miraculous!**

**Queen B: I convinced daddy to let me call Prince Ali, but I have to wait for his people to call back, which is ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!**

**Carapace: I hate to break it to you, Chloe, but he’s a prince. He probably has important stuff to do, like learning to run a country. That’s why we have our backup plan.**

**Queen B: …It’s still ridiculous.**

~*~*~*~

**THURSDAY**

The next morning at school was fairly uneventful. Marinette paid careful attention to Lila’s phone, noting every time Lila put it in a different pocket, how often she checked for it, and if she ever put it in her bag. By lunchtime, she was ready to put their plan into action.

She sent Alya and Nino to start distracting Lila. Chloe and Adrien were walking behind Lila and talking about the first thing one of them thought of (which happened to be the new clothing line Adrien was supposed to be modeling in a few weeks). All they had to do was block Lila’s potential exit route and put Adrien in position to intercept her if Alya and Nino couldn’t distract her long enough. Marinette trailed a little further behind on her own, knowing no one would notice anything was amiss if she timed this just right. Lila was on her phone as she walked, supposedly texting Prince William’s second cousin or someone like that. Marinette hadn’t been paying attention. She caught Alya’s eye and nodded once, and her two friends practically pounced on Lila.

“Lila, we are so sorry for not believing you yesterday,” Alya said as they approached. She and Nino were practically radiating sincerity. “We had no reason not to believe that you were actually Rena Rouge…it was really unfair of us to say you were lying without any proof. Can you forgive us?”

“Of course I can, you two! That’s what friends are for!” Lila said, slipping her phone into the outer pocket of her bag. Marinette smiled to herself.

_This would be too easy._

“Oh, thank goodness!” Alya exclaimed. “Anyway, I was wondering if you would want to do an interview for the Ladyblog? Since you’re such good friends with Ladybug, I wanted to do a follow up video from the last one we did when you first came to Paris! I thought that you could use it to talk about how you had gotten over the argument between you that caused you to be akumatized, and about how much your friendship means to you! I think Ladybug would really appreciate it, and it might help her seem a little more human to the people of Paris who have never gotten to talk to her!”

“Oh, I don’t know, Alya,” Lila said hesitantly. “Wouldn’t it be dangerous?”

“You don’t have to talk about your secret identity, dude,” Nino pointed out. “Just like, talk about the things you’ve been telling us all along! Like how she brought you to the top of the Eiffel Tower and saved your life!”

“Well, okay,” Lila said. “When do you want to film it?”

“We could do it right now! It should only take about 10 or 15 minutes,” Alya said, pulling Lila near the railing overlooking the school courtyard. “And the lighting is perfect here! Totally highlights your eyes!”

“Really?” Lila asked, smiling brightly. “In that case…let’s do it!”

“Perfect! I really appreciate this, Lila!” Alya said. She pulled out her phone and started to focus it on Lila, who was completely distracted with the questions Alya was explaining she would ask and mentally preparing her answers.

Marinette took that opportunity to sneak past Adrien and Chloe, who had stopped nearby and were still seemingly engrossed in their conversation, and down the hallway. As she passed by, she slipped Lila’s phone out of her bag with a flick of her wrist, hiding it in her purse next to Tikki in one fluid motion. Then she was down the stairs and ducking into the girl’s bathroom before her friends even noticed she was missing.

By some miracle, Lila had left her phone unlocked. Marinette made a mental note of where she had been in her messages and began snooping through it, looking for her mother’s contact information. She found it quickly and typed the number into her own phone. Once that was done, she reopened the chat Lila had open—which was to someone named Melody who she was texting in Italian so Marinette couldn’t understand what it said—and made her way back upstairs. 

She took a different route so Lila wouldn’t see her coming, but it turned out that it didn’t matter. Lila was so engrossed in the lies she was telling for the video that all Marinette had to do was slip the phone back into Lila’s bag with another simple flick of her wrist. Then she went up and stood beside Alya just as Lila was finishing her story.

“There you are, Alya! I was wondering where you went,” Marinette said, a slight frown on her face. “I thought we were having lunch together today.”

“We are, we are! Sorry, Marinette, I just got caught up with Lila,” Alya apologized, turning off her phone. Marinette’s frown deepened, and Lila shot a wicked look at Marinette once she was sure the camera was turned off.

“She was just asking me about my friendship with Ladybug for her Ladyblog!” Lila said, shifting her smile to a more friendly one as the others turned back to look at her.

“That’s, great, Lila,” Marinette ground out, turning to face Alya and Nino. “Can we head up to the cafeteria now? I’m starving!” 

“Yeah, me too!” Nino declared. “Let’s go!”

Nino led the way up to the cafeteria with his arm looped around Alya, Marinette walking alongside them. Lila followed, and Adrien and Chloe waited a few minutes to finish their conversation before they headed off.

**_To: Miraclasse_ **

**Chat Noir: Marinette, did it work? I didn’t see you take the phone!**

**Ladybug: It worked. I have her mom's number now. Adrien, are you still able to come see Jagged with me after school?**

**Chat Noir: Definitely! I told my dad I had a study group I had to attend and I’d call Gorilla when I needed him to pick me up.**

~*~*~*~

When they all got back to class, Lila was in the middle of a seemingly captivating story about her time in New York. For some reason or another, she was talking about fashion, which made Marinette, Adrien, and Chloe bristle.

“—and then Audrey Bourgeois came up to me and complimented my style! She insisted on featuring me in an exclusive copy of Style Queen Magazine that was only released in the United States,” Lila said. “I got to see the magazine studio and we did a proper photo shoot directed by Audrey herself!”

The class was absolutely in awe of the story, but Chloe practically had steam coming out of her ears. She took a deep breath and pulled out her phone.

**_To: Miraclasse_ **

**Queen B: I’m going to sting her.**

**Ladybug: Chloe, no. You don’t have your Miraculous, anyway, and you really shouldn’t use your powers against civilians, no matter how annoying they are.**

**Queen B: She’s lying about knowing my mom, Dupain-Cheng!**

**Ladybug: And she’s lied about the wonderful pastries she’s learned how to make and seeing people getting their eyes gouged out by napkins. That doesn’t mean you should threaten her with your Miraculous.**

**Chat Noir: Marinette’s right. Your mom is in Paris still, Chloe. You can ask her about it tonight and we can add it to our list of lies she’s been caught in.**

**Queen B: Ugh. Fine.**

**Chat Noir: I can’t wait to expose her tomorrow. This is just awful. Look at the way they just listen to her! The things she’s saying don’t even sound believable! That's not how photoshoots work!**

**Ladybug: Easy, Sodrien Chloride ;)**

**Chat Noir: DID YOU JUST MAKE A SCIENCE PUN**

**Ladybug: If you insist on calling me Saltinette, I am going to come up with a salty nickname for you too**

**Chat Noir: I think I’m in love**

**Carapace: Calm down, dude. We still have work to do. Plus Miss Bustier just walked in.**

**Chat Noir: Oh. Right. Gotta focus.**

~*~*~*~

**THURSDAY EVENING**

**_To: Miraclasse_ **

**Ladybug: Jagged Stone is on board with our plan. We’ll video call him tomorrow during class and he’ll set the record straight**

**Chat Noir: He also said he would write a song about Marinette for his next album!**

**Ladybug: You didn’t have to tell them that, you know.**

**Chat Noir: But it’s SO COOL! Jagged Stone is writing a song about you! Not that you don’t deserve it because you’re amazing, but IT’S SO COOL!**

**Chat Noir: Marinette?**

**Chat Noir: Marinette?**

**Rena R.: She’s probably showering. She’ll message back later.**

**Chat Noir: Oh. Right. What was our homework again?**

**Carapace: Did you just not pay attention at all today?**

**Chat Noir: …**

**Carapace: Was it the salt pun?**

**Chat Noir: …maybe…**

**Queen B: Wow.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for Sodrien Chloride goes to Draxynnic who left that nickname in a comment!
> 
> The last chapter is coming soon! (I'm not even going to bother saying when. I have it planned, it just needs to get written. And it is going to be just a pile of salt dumped onto your screen. Like imagine the pettiest, saltiest thing you think I could write? It's probably pettier.)


	4. Bold of You to Assume I Liked You At All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL OF THE SALT. I was busting with adrenaline the whole time I wrote this. I hope y'all like it.
> 
> Also: This is officially my most popular fic!!! That's incredible to me. Y'all are amazing.

They were supposed to expose Lila in class Friday morning, before Miss Bustier got there as their classmates were starting to file in for school. That had been the plan.

Unfortunately, that plan had been interrupted by an early morning akuma attack. Apparently, a car accident had caused a traffic jam so someone was late to work, and got so upset about it that he got himself akumatized. Normally, an incident like that would be simple enough for Ladybug and Chat Noir to fix on their own, but this guy had been so angry that the akuma had landed in the car’s steering wheel and turned into a giant robot that was wreaking havoc and causing traffic jams all over Paris. The car could transform between a robot and a car to navigate through the city, so Ladybug and Chat Noir kept losing track of it. They ended up having to call in the entire team for help.

Which worked. It still took almost an hour to isolate the akuma somewhere they could fight it without it running away, but Ladybug finally managed to get her Lucky Charm to work and they were able to finish the fight. All in all, the akuma fight took up most of the morning and it was almost lunchtime when the akuma was finally purified.

When it was time for Ladybug to collect their Miraculous, she had less than a minute to spare before her transformation ran out. She made a rash decision to let them keep their Miraculous and told them to meet her at the Eiffel Tower after school got out to give them back. Then she zipped back across Paris faster than she’d ever moved before to at least try to make it to school.

Luckily for Marinette, the school had decided to stay closed until the akuma fight ended. Most of the kids were either caught up in traffic or their parents decided it was too dangerous for them to walk to school, so Marinette arrived just as the rest of their class started showing up. She made her way up to the classroom as Chloe, Alya, and Nino reached the front doors.

She was practically buzzing with nerves. What if their plan didn’t work? What if Lila managed to save her lies somehow? What if Miss Bustier stopped them from exposing her? What if, what if, what if?

**_To: Miraclasse_ **

**Ladybug: You guys, what if this doesn’t work?**

**Queen B: Oh, don’t you dare back out on us now, Dupain-Cheng. We did not go to all of this trouble to prove Lila was trying to steal your life just for you to get cold feet at the last minute.**

**Chat Noir: Steal her life?**

**Queen B: I was thinking about it last night. Most of the lies Lila has told, at least the ones we’ve been able to catch her in, we’ve caught her in because they’re things Marinette has actually done.**

**Queen B: Now, everyone get to class. We have a bad guy to fight, and I still have my Miraculous!**

**Ladybug: Chloe, do not sting her. I brought the scarves, by the way.**

**Rena R.: YES**

**Rena R.: Be there soon**

Alya, Nino, and Chloe got to the classroom less than a minute later, with Adrien close behind them. Marinette gave them their scarves (all hand-made to match their respective heroes, plus the two extra Ladybug ones that Alya and Adrien tucked into their bags for safe-keeping) and they all sat down and waited for Lila and her groupies to walk into class before Marinette nudged Alya to start with the video interview of Ladybug. Alya pulled out her phone and tapped on Nino’s shoulder to indicate he should start recording this. Meanwhile, Marinette pulled out her phone and texted Jagged that he should call her in five minutes. Seconds later, he replied with the “rock on” hand emoji.

“Hey, guys! I got a new interview for the Ladyblog the other day! Do you guys want the exclusive first look?” Alya asked. Lila smiled proudly, thinking it was her video.

“Of course we would!” Lila said, her voice sickly sweet. Everyone crowded around Alya and Marinette’s desk, and Alya pressed play.

Lila’s smile fell when she realized the girl speaking was Ladybug, not her. Ladybug’s voice rang out through the speaker’s of Alya’s phone, filling the classroom easily.

“What do I look for in choosing a Miraculous holder?” Ladybug asked, tapping her chin in thought. “Someone honest. Someone I can trust. Someone who shows that they want to help others, specifically. Giving a Miraculous to someone is a really big responsibility, so I have to make sure they can handle that, and that they would work well with the team dynamic Chat Noir and I have spent so much time building.”

“Have you ever chosen your friends to be Miraculous holders?” Alya asked. Ladybug laughed.

“I’m not sure that I should tell you that,” Ladybug said. “A secret identity is very important when you’re a hero, after all.”

“Not even a hint?” Alya asked. “There’s a girl in my class at school who told us you gave her a Miraculous because you’re best friends.”

“What girl?” Ladybug asked, her tone more serious as she frowned.

“Her name is Lila Rossi,” Alya said. Ladybug was quiet for a few moments, and the class started to murmur amongst themselves. Lila began to fidget.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” Lila said, laughing nervously. She reached for Alya’s phone, but Alya just pulled it out of her reach.

“Oh, but you haven’t even heard the best part!” Alya exclaimed. On screen, Ladybug seemed to have made up her mind.

“Lila and I aren’t friends,” Ladybug said slowly, “and I’ve never even considered giving her a Miraculous. She lied about knowing me, and since honestly and trust are the two most important things I consider when looking for teammates, how could I give her a Miraculous? She doesn’t even meet the most basic requirements to be a hero.”

“But, Lila said you’ve saved her life many times! Was she really lying about that?” Alya asked.

“The only times I’ve saved Lila have been when she was akumatized,” Ladybug said, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. “Which has happened multiple times now. She was Volpina a few months ago, and just a couple of weeks ago, she was a shapeshifting akuma who transformed into whatever she kissed.”

The murmurs in the class grew louder. Marinette was positive she heard at least a few classmates ask why Ladybug would say Lila was lying. A glance at Lila’s face proved that she was scrambling to come up with an excuse.

“Well, that video must have been edited! You all saw how mean Alya and Nino were to me when I revealed that I was Rena Rouge! She must have edited the footage to make me look bad!” Lila said, sniffling pathetically.

As if on cue, Marinette’s phone rang with a video call. She lifted the phone up to her face and answered, only to be met with a mop of wild purple hair and a bright, familiar smile.

“Yo, Marinette! My favorite little lady! How are you?” Jagged Stone’s voice boomed through the phone. Marinette couldn’t stop the little laugh that bubbled out of her.

“Hi, Jagged! I’m good! I’m with my friends,” Marinette said. She held out the phone and panned it around the room so everyone could be seen. “Say hi to everyone!”

“Rock on!” Jagged said instead, waving to everyone. Everyone else waved back eagerly. Apparently they couldn’t believe they were actually talking to a world famous rock star.

“Mr. Stone, did you see Lila was here?” Kim called excitedly from the back of the room. Jagged’s smile dropped into a confused frown.

Marinette fought back her smile at how well her classmates were unknowingly playing into their plan. She felt a little bad about manipulating them, but she wasn’t really manipulating them, was she? No one told them to ask Jagged Stone about Lila...

“What’s a Lila?” Jagged asked.

“Lila Rossi! You must remember her!” Rose exclaimed. “She saved your kitten! And you wrote a song about her!”

“My kitten? Why would anyone think I would have such a mainstream pet? Kittens are cute and all, but they don’t really scream ‘Rock and Roll’ the way Fang does!” Jagged said. “And I remember everyone I’ve written songs about. Lila Rossi is not one of them.”

The whole class grew very quiet as the implications of that statement hit them like a truck.

“Speaking of writing songs about people, Marinette, that’s part of what I’m calling you about!” Jagged continued, not even noticing the strained silence on the other end of the call. “I have a few ideas for that song I said I’d write about you, based on the nice things your friend said about you being an Everyday Ladybug! I think it would be totally rock and roll! Plus I wanted to talk to you about designing my next album cover and my wardrobe for my world tour. Penny is going to call your parents about it, and we can do lunch this weekend.”

“Sounds like a plan to me, Jagged,” Marinette said happily.

“You’re my girl, Marinette! Rock and roll!” Jagged exclaimed as he ended the call. Marinette put her phone away and turned around to see her classmates start edging away from Lila.

“Was everything a, a lie?” Rose asked, her blue eyes wide with betrayal. Lila scrambled to save her reputation.

“No, no of course not! I totally met—”

“Met who, Lila? My mother?” Chloe interrupted, her eyes like ice. “Because I asked her about that last night, and she had no clue what I was talking about.”

“Well, Audrey Bourgeois is very busy, as you all know, so she probably just forgot,” Lila said quickly. “After all, Chloe, she sometimes doesn’t even remember your name, and you’re her daughter.”

The class got very quiet at that. Marinette caught Chloe’s hand twitch towards her sunglasses where she hid her Miraculous and sent her a quick text.

**_To: Miraclasse_ **

**Ladybug: Not that way, Sodium Chloe. Call your mom. Stick to the plan.**

Chloe glanced at her phone as it lit up and took a deep breath, then turned to Lila with a fiery determination.

“Well, I guess I could video call her and see if she recognizes you,” Chloe said, already dialing. All of the color drained out of Lila’s face.

“No, that won’t be—”

“Chloe? What are you doing video calling me right now? You’re supposed to be in class! Or were you too busy being a hero?” Audrey Bourgeois’s cold voice rang out loud and clear, silencing any arguments Lila was about to make.

“I am in class, Mom! Lila is here, remember the girl I told you about? The one who said she met you in New York and did a whole photoshoot for your magazine? She wanted to say hi,” Chloe said, turning the phone so Audrey could see Lila clearly. Audrey looked over her with obvious distain.

“I have never seen you before in my life,” Audrey said coldly. “I don’t appreciate lies being spread about my magazine.”

While Lila struggled to come up with an excuse, Audrey’s eyes shifted to Marinette.

“Oh, Marinette. You’re there too. Chloe says the two of you have been getting along better recently. It still seems like such a waste that you wouldn’t go to New York with me. You have such an eye for fashion,” Audrey said. “No matter. You’re still young. I’m sure I’ll get you to New York one day to really put that potential of yours to good use.”

“Oh, um, thank you, Mrs. Bourgeois,” Marinette said awkwardly. She hadn’t expected Chloe’s mom to have anything nice to say about her, but it was a nice surprise.

“Yes, yes. Chloe, as you know I’m very busy, so I have to go. See you at dinner,” Audrey said. She made two distinct kissy noises and hung up.

“Did you even leave Paris, Lila?” Max asked, turning on the girl.

“Yeah! How much else did you lie about?”

The entire class was looking at Lila the same way they had looked at Marinette when she said she didn’t want to move seats. Lila seemed to be at a loss.

“You know, Lila, we could always call your mother and ask about all of the awesome stuff you did in Achu,” Marinette said, scrolling through her phone to find the new contact she had obtained. “Surely she was there with you, since you couldn’t have been there alone for so long, and I’m really interested to hear about the ways she helped out as well!”

“Marinette, you don't have her number, my mother is really busy. There’s no need to—”

“It’s ringing,” Marinette cut her off, holding up one finger for silence as she switched the phone to speaker. A minute later, the line connected.

“Who is this?” a woman’s voice rang out. Lila’s eyes widened.

“Mom?” Lila asked.

“Lila? What’s going on? Why are you calling me from an unfamiliar number?” Lila’s mother asked. Lila stuttered, desperate for an explanation, but Marinette beat her to it.

“Hi, Mrs. Rossi, my name is Marinette! I’m in Lila’s class at school! She was telling us all about her adventures in Achu with Prince Ali while she was away from school, and we thought we would call you and ask you to tell us more!” Marinette said brightly, her voice as sweet as could be. “If you’re not too busy, of course.”

“Lila? What does she mean by your ‘adventures in Achu’? You’ve never been there! You told me the school was shut down because it was too dangerous!” Lila’s mother yelled.

“Shut down? Oh, no, ma’am. The school was never shut down,” Marinette said, tilting her head in confusion. “If there is an akuma attack on or near the campus, classes will stop until Ladybug and Chat Noir have fixed everything, for the students’ personal safety, of course, but the school has never been shut down for any real length of time.”

“Lila, I think I am long overdue for a talk with your principal.”

“No, Mom, that really isn’t necessary, after all I know you’re so busy with everything—"

Lila got cut off again as her mother began to yell in Italian. The class didn’t know what was being said, but if Lila’s expression was any indication, it wasn’t something they wanted directed at them. The line cut out abruptly, and Lila took a deep breath to steady herself.

“Is everything you say a lie?” Mylene asked coldly. Lila looked frantically around the room for a friendly face and settled on the one person who has never called her out in front of their classmates.

“Adrien! They’re all being so mean to me! You have to help me,” she begged pathetically. Adrien leveled her with a cold look.

“Sorry, Lila. But I don’t help people who threaten my friends,” Adrien said. The class gasped, and Marinette, Alya, and Nino could see the moment Lila put the pieces together.

“You told them,” Lila snapped, turning on Marinette. “I warned you that you would not like me as your enemy, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

“Bold of you to assume I liked you at all,” Marinette shot back. A very quiet ‘oooh’ chorused amongst their friends. Marinette nodded to Nino to stop recording.

“Well, well, well you still can’t prove I lied about being Rena Rouge!” Lila exclaimed. “Unless Ladybug was here to tell you herself, you have no way to know that Alya didn’t just edit that footage! There’s no way it’s real! Ladybug and I are best friends! I promise!”

“There is a way to prove it, actually,” Marinette said. “You could transform. Prove to us once and for all that you are Rena Rouge. You already told us your identity, so there really isn’t any harm in doing so.”

“I told you already, I can’t! What if there was another akuma attack and I had wasted my energy doing something petty, like proving a point to people who don’t want to believe me?” Lila exclaimed, her frustration palpable. Alya bristled, and Marinette saw her expression shift. She realized what was about to happen as Alya stood up, but she was too late to stop it.

“Do you want to know why you really can’t transform, Lila?” Alya asked, her voice even and her expression calm despite the anger burning in her eyes. “Because that Miraculous you wear is fake, and I can prove it! Trixx, let’s pounce!”

A flash of bright orange light filled the room, and seconds later Rena Rouge was standing in Alya’s place, her serene smile a striking contrast to the anger rolling off of her. The whole class was so silent you could hear a pin drop in the courtyard downstairs.

“Oh, shit,” someone in the back whispered. Marinette suspected it was Kim, but didn’t bother turning around to check.

“Dammit, Alya,” Marinette muttered. “We agreed we wouldn’t do this. We agreed that this was a bad idea, did we not?”

“Wait, you knew?” Rena asked, turning to her best friend. Marinette looked up at her with a proud smile.

“Did you really think I didn’t know my best friend was a superhero?” Marinette asked in response.

“Then why didn’t you ever say anything?” Rena asked. “Why didn’t you stop Lila the other day?”

“Well, for one thing, I was mad at you,” Marinette reminded her. “And for another, it’s your secret identity, Alya. The word secret means no one should know. How could I say something? And I did, if you recall, say that I was a huge fan of Rena Rouge. That wasn’t a coincidence.”

Rena felt her heart swell as she hugged her best friend tightly. Meanwhile, the class all started to remember things as they tried to put the pieces together.

“Wait, Nino knew Lila wasn’t Rena Rouge too…did you tell him your identity?”

“But Alya, you’re dating Nino! I thought Rena Rouge was dating Carapace!”

“Are you cheating on Nino with Carapace?”

“They’re obviously all dating each other! How romantic!”

“Well,” Rena said awkwardly, looking to Nino to help her out. He did the one thing only two other people in the classroom expected, though one of them dreaded the outcome.

“Wayzz? Shell on!” Nino yelled. Just like with Alya, there was a blinding flash of green light, and when it faded Carapace was standing at the edge of the classroom. He waved at their classmates awkwardly. “‘Sup?”

This time, the class was not silent. This time, the class began to cheer when they realized they had not one, not two, but three superhero friends. Marinette’s frustration went unnoticed.

_Do the words secret identity mean nothing anymore?_ she thought to herself. _Well, if we’re doing this, we might as well go all the way._

Marinette focused her attention on Lila, who had been slowly making her way back to the front of the room, almost as if she planned on running away.

“You know, Lila, you’ve told us a lot of lies,” Marinette said as she stood up. Her voice was perfectly even as she walked down the stairs towards the girl. “But, there is one thing you didn’t lie about. Do you want to know what it is?”

“What?” Lila asked hesitantly. She had been caught in so many lies by this point, even she couldn’t remember what the truth was.

“Ladybug did choose her best friend to fight alongside her. Tikki, spots on!”

The whole class frantically tried to process that information as yet another light filled the classroom, this one a bright pink. When they looked back, Marinette had been replaced by Ladybug where she stood in front of their teacher’s desk.

The cheers from her classmates were almost deafening as all of the pieces fell into place. Everyone lost it. Alya looked like her mind had short-circuited; Nino looked proud if not a little confused; Chloe’s jaw had dropped in shock, and Adrien was looking at her like she was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. Not that Marinette really noticed all of that, since her focus was fully directed towards the liar standing next to her.

“That video was not a fake, Lila,” Ladybug said cooly. “I would never have chosen someone like you to be a hero. I need teammates that I can trust, and I don’t trust liars.”

Lila was silent for a few minutes, and everyone watched with baited breath to see how she would respond. Meanwhile, Adrien fiddled with his ring before making a decision.

“You know, this is nothing like how I imagined today would go,” Adrien said, standing up and moving to stand near Ladybug, “but I’m going to follow your lead, My Lady. Plagg, claws out!”

“What?” Ladybug shrieked, spinning to face him as another green light filled the room. This time it was Chat Noir who appeared, and the class freaked out all over again.

“But, you, I, we,” Ladybug stuttered, trying to wrap her brain around this new information. As if by magic, all of the missing pieces fit together in her mind’s eye, and she started yelling. “You stupid cat! I should have known! All of those puns in the group chat? How did I miss it?”

“To be fair, I called your our Everyday Ladybug completely unironically. I had no idea you really were Ladybug,” Chat Noir said, laughing awkwardly. “I’m not as surprised as I think I should be, but I actually called Marinette Ladybug without knowing the truth, so I guess we’re even?”

“Wait, you guys really didn’t know?” Nathaniel asked.

“No!” All five heroes yelled at once. “No, we did not!”

“I knew about Alya, Nino, and Chloe because I was the one who gave them their Miraculous, and I knew that Alya and Nino knew about each other and about Chloe because everyone knew about Chloe, but I had no idea Adrien was Chat Noir,” Ladybug said. They could see Marinette’s panicked babbling starting to peek out from under the mask, and suddenly everything made much more sense to everyone. “I thought you were the only one in the group chat without a Miraculous! I felt awful!”

“Aw, Bugaboo, you do care,” Chat Noir teased gently, trying to diffuse the tension.

“Of course I care, you stupid cat!” Ladybug snapped. Chat Noir recoiled slightly, a smug grin on his face.

“Pollen, buzz on!” Chloe yelled as she stood up. When the yellow light surrounding her faded, she leaned back on the desk and sneered at Lila. “Who’s the hero now, Lila? Apparently Marinette thought that I was more trustworthy than you. That must sting.”

Lila was fuming. Her face was bright red, and there was practically steam coming out of her ears. Ladybug caught sight of an akuma flying towards them and snapped out her yoyo to catch it with ease.

“Not today, little akuma,” she said as she released the now purified akuma back into the classroom. It flew out an open window and presumably back to where it came from.

“Wait, isn’t this like, super dangerous for you all now?” Alix asked. “We all know your identities.”

Ladybug glanced around at her teammates, who were all looking at her as if to say, “We’ll follow your lead.”

“I'll admit that this was not how I expected today to go, but since Himalyan Pink Salt and NinoCl over there started this,” Ladybug said, coming to a decision even as she teased her best friends, “we trust you guys. We never would have transformed in front of you if we didn’t. At least I wouldn’t have. It’s a big secret, and there’s a lot of responsibility involved in protecting it, but I know you can do it. I’ve known you guys for years. I believe that I can trust you to protect us.”

“But what about Lila?” Kim asked. “You’ve already made it clear that she can’t be trusted.”

“I’m going to give Lila a choice,” Ladybug said, turning to the girl in question, “similar to the one she gave me when she threatened me in the bathroom. You can either stop lying and promise to keep our identities a secret, or we can post the video of what happened here everywhere and truly expose you as the liar you are. Nino recorded the whole thing, right up until Alya transformed into Rena Rouge, so our identities would be safe, and all of Paris would know not to believe a word you say. I’ll give you until the end of the day to let me know what you decide.”

“What’s stopping me from telling Hawkmoth who you all are?” Lila challenged. She held her head up high as she stared down against the hero she hated. The entire class gasped in shock, but Ladybug hardly blinked at the threat.

“I hope you realize that by threatening to expose our identities to Hawkmoth, you are saying that you would willingly work with someone who has terrorized a city for the better part of a year. That you are telling me, Ladybug, in front of a room full of witnesses, that you would put all of France and possibly the world at risk because you got caught lying. That agreeing to work with Hawkmoth would make you an accomplice to his crimes, which makes you a threat, and that our job as heroes is to eliminate that threat, no matter who poses it,” Ladybug said, her voice clear and even despite the rage burning in her eyes. “Because if that’s the case, and you would rather work with a criminal than protect our identities, I have no problem taking you to Sabrina’s dad and telling him everything that happened here today. I have a room full of witnesses to testify that you said you would work with Hawkmoth and a video full of evidence that you are a notorious liar. It’s your choice, Lila. Spots off.”

Marinette felt the magic wash over her again as she detransformed and caught Tikki in the palm of her hand. The kwami zipped back into Marinette’s purse, and multicolored lights filled the room as the other heroes dropped their transformations as well.

“In the meantime, I think we need to bring this video to Principal Damocles. I suspect your mother will be here soon,” Marinette said. She turned on her heel and walked out of the classroom, her teammates and best friends at her side.

They all stopped short when they saw Miss Bustier waiting outside the door for them. They started stammering out explanations, but she just raised one hand to silence them.

“I’m so proud of you,” Miss Bustier said, smiling warmly. She didn’t elaborate, but they all knew she had seen everything. Marinette stepped forward and hugged her tightly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Miss Bustier hugged her back, then let go and stepped out of their way.

“I believe you five have a meeting with Principal Damocles?” Miss Bustier said. “I have a few assignments to give the others while we wait. Go.”

They all nodded and raced off towards the principal’s office. They felt like a weight had finally been lifted off of their shoulders now that their classmates all knew the truth, and now that there were no more secrets between them.

...

Well, almost none.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, credit for the nicknames goes to people in the comments!
> 
> Yes, Jagged says rock and roll a lot. I went back and watched the first bit of Troublemaker to see how he would talk about Marinette for his lines. I hope they fit his character because I had so much fun writing his lines.
> 
> I decided there would be one more chapter after this. It'll probably be very short, but I think we still need one more to really bring the fic to a proper conclusion.


	5. I Swear on All that is Good and Fashionable in the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! 
> 
> I just want to say, you guys are fantastic. When I posted the first chapter on Tumblr, it was just a short idea that I wrote in response to a post I saw about Alya and Nino trying to apologize to Marinette for not believing her about Lila and her being salty over it. Now **Liar, Liar** is my most popular fic that I've ever posted??? That's incredible. Shadestar24 even went through and reread the fic and left a comment saying they noticed a parallel between Lila and Marinette's reveals, which just blows my mind because you guys are rereading this??? You like it enough to read it multiple times and notice little things like that??? I have no words to describe how I reacted to that (which says something, because I have words for EVERYTHING, lol). All of your comments and kudos and reactions and everything have made this so much better, and I just want you to know that your comments did influence a lot of this fic, aside from just the nicknames (which definitely came from comment threads about them, lol). Some of them have influenced little scenes and side interactions outside of the main salt (like the scene in the last chapter between Miss Bustier and the squad and Marinette's anxieties over their plan, which came from a comment by  
> Miraculous_Toad), and one comment in particular that I'll mention in the note at the end influenced the way this chapter turned out, so I hope y'all enjoy it!
> 
> Okay, enough of me. Let's get to what you guys are actually here to read, shall we?

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” Principal Damocles said, standing up from his chair and walking around the desk to them. Marinette and Alya stood up from their seats and Nino, Adrien, and Chloe adjusted where they were standing to accommodate them. “I’ll make sure to bring up that video in my meeting with Mrs. Rossi today. Especially considering how she lied about not attending classes. I always knew that girl was a troublemaker.”

He was about to say something else when faint screams echoed through their campus. The five teenagers looked at each other as the same thought sent fear coursing through their veins.

“Lila!” they said in unison, bolting out the door without a second thought. They vaguely heard Principal Damocles yelling for them to come back, but they ignored him. They raced through the hall and skidded to a stop just outside of their classroom. Marinette was the first to walk through the door.

Kim and Ivan were both holding onto Lila’s arms, their posture indicating they were restraining her for some reason. Marinette didn’t see a purple butterfly around her eyes despite how angry the girl looked, so she diverted her attention to the rest of the room.

Alix, Max, Nathaniel, and Mylene were glaring daggers at Lila, forming a barrier between her and the door. Marinette turned around to see Juleka and Miss Bustier kneeling on the ground next to Rose, who had her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clasped around her ears. The only unusual thing was that her pink bracelets were now a dark and angry purple.

“What happened?” Marinette demanded.

“Another akuma came after Lila, but Rose saw it and managed to jump in front of it,” Sabrina explained. “It went into her bracelet!”

“It’s a good thing she did,” Kim said, tightening his grip on Lila’s arm as she started to struggle. “Lila would have told Hawkmoth everything!”

Marinette turned to Adrien, Alya, Nino, and Chloe and saw that they looked as devastated as she felt. _If Hawkmoth was still targeting Lila…_

“Lila and Hawkmoth can't be in the same city anymore,” Alya said, finishing Marinette’s thought.

“Kim, help Juleka and Miss Bustier take Rose out of the room. Keep her fighting Hawkmoth’s control as long as you can,” Marinette directed. Her tone left no room for questions, and the class gladly let her take on the leadership role she was so familiar with. Alix took hold of Lila’s arm as Kim let go and lifted Rose carefully so he could carry her out into the hall. Marinette began to pace.

“Think, Marinette, think! We need a plan,” she muttered to herself. She glanced around the room for anything that could help her, but all she saw were her classmates. “Hawkmoth can only akumatize one person at a time…”

“What about Heroes’ Day?” Nino asked. “He had a bunch of akumas that day.”

“No, that was something he planned. All of the akumas that day were bright red, remember? They’re usually multicolored and each has a unique design, but every akuma that day was red, including him, and when we broke his staff he turned back to purple. He must have found a way to create an akuma that would allow him to create multiple akumas at once, like a battery pack or a generator or something,” Marinette said, gesturing wildly as she paced. Everyone took a few steps back to give her a wide berth. “So as long as someone is akumatized that isn’t Lila, we can buy ourselves some time…but we can’t just have akumas running all over Paris while we figure this out! We need a plan…no, a distraction. A way to prevent Lila from being akumatized while we find him.”

“I’m sorry, but did you just say find him?” Alya asked incredulously. “As in, do the very thing you’ve been trying to do since you put on those earrings? How are we supposed to do that in an afternoon?”

“We’re on a time limit now, Alya. It’s only a matter of time before one of us slips up and Lila gets akumatized. We have to find and defeat Hawkmoth today,” Marinette said.

“The closest we’ve ever come to stopping him was during Heroes’ Day, when he actually appeared in person! We almost had his Miraculous when the Peacock Miraculous holder jumped in to save him!” Adrien argued.

“Adrien, he planned that. If we attack today he won’t see it coming! We can have the upper hand for once,” Marinette pressed. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We don’t even know what arrondissement he’s hiding in, Marinette, let alone where his lair is!”

“You say that like I don’t know that already! Of course I know that we don’t know where to find him, but we don’t have a choice. We made the decision to reveal our identities to Lila, even after we knew she had been akumatized multiple times in the past. Granted we didn’t know she had done it willingly, but we still made a rash decision, and these are the consequences we have to deal with,” Marinette said. She was pacing so quickly her friends were worried she was going to get dizzy, or worse, wear a hole through the floor and fall through it. “Obviously Lila is always going to be a threat because as long as she hates us, Hawkmoth can use that emotion for his own benefit, and since we can’t make Lila stop hating us and we can’t just make her leave Paris, we have to take away the source of the threat and defeat Hawkmoth once and for all.”

“Okay,” Adrien agreed, running a hand through his hair. “You’re right. What’s the plan?”

Marinette stopped pacing for two seconds, and they could see her determination start to waver. “I don’t know.”

She started pacing again, muttering unintelligibly to herself. Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Chloe all looked at each other in the hopes that one of them would have an idea, but none of them did.

“We’ll help you,” Mylene spoke up, startling everyone in the room.

“No, no it’s too dangerous,” Marinette immediately began to argue, shaking her head fervently. “I don’t know if I can get each of you a Miraculous—“

“Then don’t,” Nathaniel said gently, picking up on what Mylene meant. “We’ll help you without getting in the way of the actual fight, like backup or your eyes on the ground or something. We can guard Lila to make sure she doesn’t get akumatized while you worry about Hawkmoth.”

“I think I can help you find Hawkmoth, actually. If I can access the city’s security camera footage or hack into satellite footage of Paris, I might be able to find where the akumas come from, which should lead you right to him!” Max said. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a familiar robot right as Miss Bustier stuck her head back into the classroom. “Markov can help me!”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear you talk about hacking into government security and say that all of this is for an extra credit assignment,” Miss Bustier said, then turned to Marinette. “Rose can’t hold on much longer. She’s doing a good job so far since she wasn’t too scared or angry when it happened, but Hawkmoth is starting to get to her.”

“Thanks, Miss Bustier,” Marinette said, nodding quickly before turning back to the class and Miss Bustier stepped outside again. “I still can’t ask you to do this! When I said I trusted you to protect us, I meant that I trusted you guys not to tell anyone who we are! Not that I expected you to throw yourselves into a fight that isn’t yours!”

“It became our fight when we refused to listen to you about Lila, Marinette,” Alix said. “You could have easily been akumatized because of it, and there would be no Ladybug to come and clean up our mess! Plus, if we had listened to you in the first place, you never would have revealed your identity to all of us today! This is our fight, too.”

“Alix is right, DC,” Kim said as he darted back into the room. “I don’t think you have a choice anymore. You need help, and I think we’re it.”

Marinette stopped pacing and looked around at her classmates. They were all serious, and if her stress levels were any indication, they were right. She needed all the help she could get. One glance at her teammate’s hopeful faces made her decision for her.

“Okay. You guys can help, but we have to do this quickly,” Marinette said, a plan immediately coming to mind now that she realized her classmates were basically her Lucky Charm for this fight. “Here’s what I need you to do: Max and Markov, you guys get on the camera footage. Find where those akumas are coming from. Without that, we don’t stand a chance. Chloe, can you call your dad and ask him to give us access? We don’t want anyone innocent getting arrested for trying to help us.”

“On it,” Chloe said, whipping out her phone and dialing her father as she walked to the back of the classroom.

“Great. Sabrina, I need you to manage everything from here. Keep track of who is akumatized and when,” Marinette directed. “I think Hawkmoth is able to purify his akumas on his own, since I know Volpina was involved in his stunt on Heroes’ Day and I wasn’t there to purify the akuma myself, and he must have had to purify Lila to create his super-akuma for the attack. So if he decides to purify the akuma that hit Rose or we end up having to, we need someone keeping track and warning the others to be on the lookout. Alya, can you add everyone to the group chat so we can keep in touch?”

“Of course,” Alya said. She started typing rapidly, and everyone’s phone began to beep as they were notified of the chat.

“Perfect. Now, I need Ivan, Mylene, Miss Bustier, and Nathaniel to guard Lila. Make sure she doesn’t get akumatized. If Rose’s akuma is purified for any reason, I need you to keep an eye on the group chat and be willing to follow Rose’s lead and dive in front of the akuma. It’s a lot to ask, but I need to know there’s someone nearby at all times who can handle that,” Marinette begged. Her friends nodded eagerly.

“You can count on us. We’ll tell Miss Bustier,” Ivan said. Marinette smiled at them proudly.

“Thank you. Now, Kim and Alix, I need you two and Juleka to follow Rose while she’s akumatized. You two are the fastest in the class, and I trust that Juleka will be able to get Rose back to wherever Ivan, Mylene, Nathaniel, and Miss Bustier are waiting with Lila. I need you to be the ones to text Sabrina if and when she’s deakumatized, and be ready to go after whoever gets akumatized next. It’s dangerous, but I think I can trust you guys to stay back far enough that you shouldn’t be targets,” Marinette said. Alix and Kim nodded and moved to stand by the door, ready to chase after Rose if and when Hawkmoth convinced her to give in. Marinette’s heart broke for her classmate, but she was also incredibly proud of her. No one had withstood an akuma for so long.

“That just leaves us,” Marinette said, turning to her teammates. “We’ll do our jobs and fight the akumas while we wait for Max’s signal that he found Hawkmoth’s lair.”

“No, Marinette, we won’t,” Nino said, putting his hand on Alya’s shoulder. “Alya, Chloe, and I will fight the akumas. You and Adrien need to do the smart thing and wait this out. It’s your Miraculous he wants. The closer you are to the akumas, the greater the chance is that one of them will wear you down and get it away from you.”

“I can’t let you do that! Plus, it’s us he wants! Why would he keep sending out akumas if Chat Noir and I don’t show up?” Marinette argued.

“She’s right, Nino,” Adrien said. “We have to be there. It’s our fight.”

“Hawkmoth is your fight,” Alya corrected. “We can handle the akumas, and you can stay close in case we break the object by accident and need to purify the butterfly before we have another incident like Stoneheart. But I can use Mirage to create a Ladybug and Chat Noir illusion that would make it look like you’re there until the akuma touches it. Plus, the akumas have a little bit of leeway in how they use the power they’re given. We may get lucky and Rose won't put up much of a fight.”

As if on cue, there was a scream in the hallway. Miss Bustier practically dragged Juleka back into the classroom, and just outside the door Marinette caught sight of Rose being engulfed in purple magic. They were out of time. Chloe hung up the phone and ran back down the stairs, while Kim and Nathaniel explained the plan to Juleka and Miss Bustier.

“Fine. We’ll try that first, but call as soon as you need backup,” Marinette ordered. “Is everything sorted?”

“Max won’t be in any legal trouble for this, as guaranteed by the mayor and heroes of Paris,” Chloe promised. “But daddy can’t get him access quickly enough so he’ll still have to hack in.”

“Already on it!” Max said, typing away furiously from Miss Bustier’s computer. Sabrina jumped up on the desk, phone in hand and ready to put her organizational skills to good use.

“Okay. Then Chloe, you go out the door and draw Rose away from the class. Hawkmoth already knows your identity, so that isn’t at risk here,” Marinette said. Chloe nodded and transformed as Marinette turned to Alya and Nino. “You two go out the window and loop around. Be careful. Adrien and I will follow in a few minutes.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Alya said. She and Nino transformed and moved towards the window, but Marinette hugged her friends tightly.

“I’ll always worry, but I know we can do this,” Marinette whispered. She let go a second later and took a breath to prepare herself. “Okay. Now, all of you go. We don’t have time to waste.”

The three heroes nodded and left the classroom. Chloe made as much noise as possible to distract the akuma and then took off over the rooftops. Luckily, Rose followed. Kim, Alix, and Juleka chased after them without a second thought. The ‘Lila Security Detail’ began discussing the best place to hide while this went down.

“I think that’s our cue to go, My Lady,” Adrien said, holding out his hand to Marinette. She took another deep breath and grabbed his hand, following him to the door.

“You’re going to fail,” Lila sneered. Marinette stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around so fast, her friends were amazed that she was still standing. There was a fury in her eyes that made the rest of the class take two more steps back even though it wasn’t directed at them.

“Lila, I swear on all that is good and fashionable in the world that if you don’t shut up, I am going to call Sabrina’s dad and have him come arrest you right now,” Marinette growled. “I’ll tell him everything.” 

“You wouldn’t. That would require revealing your identity to him too,” Lila said, her mean facade cracking under Marinette’s glare.

“Are you sure about that?” Marinette asked. She cleared her throat, and immediately her expression changed into the sweet Marinette they had all known for years, and her eyes looked sad and betrayed. When she spoke again, her voice was sweet and innocent and heartbroken. 

“Lt. Raincomprix, Lila threatened to tell Hawkmoth that I was Ladybug! She would put all of my friends and my family in danger, all because I warned our friends that she was lying to us!” She cleared her throat again, and this time her voice was gruff and gravely to indicate she was impersonating Sabrina’s dad. “And why would she think you were Ladybug, Marinette?”

Marinette cleared her throat again, and the sweet and innocent voice was back, “I think it was because of my hairstyle! It’s the same as Ladybug's, but Lt. Raincomprix, you know how clumsy I am! If I tried to jump off a roof like Ladybug does, I would fall to my death! And I can barely talk to the boy I like at school, so how could I possibly challenge Hawkmoth in front of all of Paris?”

As soon as she finished, the sweet facade melted away, and Marinette looked angrier than ever, if not slightly smug. The class was silent for a minute.

“Okay, that was scary,” Max said quietly. Everyone else nodded in agreement, including Miss Bustier.

“You would lie to the cops, Marinette? How does that make you any better than me?” Lila challenged.

“What did I lie about, Lila? You are the expert, after all,” Marinette said. “Did I lie about you threatening to tell Hawkmoth that I was Ladybug? Did I lie about you being willing to put my friends and family in danger because I caught you lying? Did I lie about my hairstyle being the same as Ladybug’s? Or about how I can barely string two words together around my crush? What about how clumsy I am? Because if I was to jump off a building as Marinette, we all know I wouldn’t be rushing off to fight any akumas after that. So, tell me. What did I lie about?”

Lila was silent for once. Marinette smiled at her smugly.

“I don’t like to lie, Lila. In fact, I hate liars. But I do know how to protect a secret identity, and I’ve been doing so for months by simply hiding in plain sight. I know how to use the things people see about me to protect my secret, and even when they were teasing me for being clumsy or saying I couldn’t be a superhero because of it, I felt relieved and could laugh with them because I knew that my secret was still safe. And even if you told the police that I really was Ladybug, they would all have seen the footage by then and know that you were a liar, so why would they believe you over me and a class full of witnesses who all know the truth?” Marinette asked. 

Lila didn’t say another word. She ground her teeth together and glared at the floor, but at least she wasn’t arguing anymore. Marinette turned back to Adrien and nodded once, and the two of them ran out the door.

They ran through the hallways until they found a secluded place to transform where they could still escape easily. Marinette leaned back against the wall with a heavy sigh.

“Are you okay? That couldn’t have been easy,” Adrien said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, but all of the confidence and anger he’d seen in her eyes was gone. Now, her eyes were wide and filled with worry.

“What if Lila’s right? What if we do fail?” Marinette asked quietly.

“We won’t,” Adrien assured her. Marinette pushed away from the wall and turned away from him.

“How do you know? How do you know I didn’t just doom all of Paris because of I was petty enough to reveal my identity to someone I don’t trust? How do you know my plan isn’t going to get all of our classmates hurt? How do you know—” 

“I know because it’s your plan, Marinette,” Adrien interrupted, putting his hands on Marinette’s shoulders so he could turn her back to face him. She was still avoiding eye-contact, so he gently grabbed her chin and pulled her face up to look at him. “When have you ever come up with a plan that failed? Maybe if it was just you, or just you and me, this plan wouldn’t work. But it’s not! We have three teammates who know what they’re doing and a class full of allies who are willing to be distractions and get themselves reakumatized to help protect us. We can do this.”

“What happens if we fail though? What if he gets our Miraculous and destroys everything? And then what happens to us if we succeed? We just told our friends that we’re heroes, but if we defeat Hawkmoth, we don’t need to be heroes anymore and we won’t have to be teammates and partners and we won’t have to be best friends and—” 

“Marinette, breathe,” Adrien ordered, a stern look on his face. He took a few deep, exaggerated breaths for her to follow and waited for her to calm down before he continued.

“Marinette, we are partners, both in and out of the suits. For better or worse, we were chosen to be Ladybug and Chat Noir and protect this city. If Hawkmoth wants to steal our Miraculous, he’s going to have to kill me first, because I would die before letting him near either of them, okay?” Adrien asked, and his eyes were kind even though his expression was deadly serious. Marinette nodded and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you, Kitty,” she whispered. He smiled and pulled her closer.

“Any time, My Lady,” he said. He soaked up the attention she was giving him before he put his hands on her shoulders and reluctantly pushed her away. “Now, I think our teammates could use some help. Are you ready?”

“For better or worse?” Marinette asked, taking a step back and holding out her fist in a familiar gesture.

“Until death do us part,” Adrien replied with a teasing grin and a waggle of his eyebrows, tapping his fist against hers. His smile widened when she blushed fiercely.

“You dork,” she muttered, then looked at him as if she were sizing him up. 

Her eyes flared with determination and she stood up on the tips of her toes, pressing a gentle kiss against his cheek. It was over as quickly as it began, just like at the picnic on Heroes’ Day, and she cleared her throat while he was still processing what happened. She flashed him a dazzling smile and waited until he returned it with a slightly shakier grin before they both said those three magic words that meant so much to them.

“Tikki? Spots on!”

“Plagg? Claws out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yes. There is a cliffhanger. And a pretty big one at that. Do you know what that means????
> 
> THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL! The first chapter should be posted sometime between the 10th and 15th of December, so keep an eye here on AO3 and on [Tumblr](https://mindfulmagics.tumblr.com/) (yes, I still plan on being on Tumblr to post at least the first chapter, regardless of how the nonsense there goes down on the 17th). It'll be called **Miraclasse** , like the group chat in this story, and will pick up right where this chapter left off.
> 
> Why a sequel? Well, for one, I've never done a series before but it felt right for this story to have a sequel to deal with the next big issue. The other reason is I have two final essays due on the 10th and if I don't have this story marked as complete I will continue to write this instead of focusing on my essays because I have zero self control. (Also I hate lying and I felt like I KEPT lying about how this story was going to go and how many chapters there would be and when things would update, which I'm sure y'all don't mind that I ended up lying about those things, but it was bugging me like Lila bugs Marinette.)
> 
> Anyway, if you didn't get it from my Author's note at the beginning of this chapter, I absolutely love seeing your comments and I'd love to see your ideas about the sequel! And if you have any akuma ideas you'd be willing to share, please do. I don't want to redo the akumas in the show this time around since they're being akumatized for very different reasons, but I don't have any ideas at the moment...I have the sequel more or less planned out, and it should be between 2 and 10 chapters and I know how I want the very last chapter to go already (it was originally supposed to be the end of **Liar, Liar** but Gryphinwyrm7's comment changed my mind at the last minute), but as y'all can tell, I love your input and always take it into consideration when I plan my chapters.
> 
> Well, that doesn't read like a Youtube commentary before the outro _at all_ , lol. Thanks so much for reading!!!


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